The price change will go into effect on April 17th for renewals, so if your renewal is up before the 17th, you’ll still be renewed at the current $79 rate.

New members, however, have until March 20th to sign up at the $79 rate — so if you’ve been on the fence, now would be a good time to pull that Prime trigger!

(Amazon Students will also see an increase. Currently priced at $39, Amazon Students will now be paying $49. But if you sign-up before March 20, you’ll still be able to pay the current rate of $39.)

If you’re a current Prime or Student member, you should be getting an e-mail this morning with the renewal date specific to your membership.

Current members will still receive all the benefits of Amazon Prime, including unlimited FREE Two-Day Shipping for eligible purchases, unlimited streaming with Prime Instant Video, and the ability to borrow books from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Is Prime Still Worth It at $99

Every person’s budget considerations are different, but I’ll tell you that as a long-time Amazon Prime subscriber, I do plan to keep my Prime when it goes up to $99.

(In fact, a friend and I were just talking about this other day and agreed that our “cut-off point” would be about $50 higher.)

I order frequently from Amazon and the free shipping that comes as Prime benefit is still definitely worth it to me for only $1.67 more per month (that’s the $20 increase amortized over 12 months).

I actually find that I spend less by shopping online than I do in the store. I can NEVER go in to Target and not get at least one thing that’s not on my list. Yesterday it was three gift bags that were marked down 50% off to $1.29 each. It was a great deal, but that was $3.90 that I wasn’t planning on spending. I almost never have those kind of “check out add-ins” when I shop online. In fact, that $3.90 for those gift bags was more than double what this increase in Prime will be.

We use Amazon’s video service frequently. As in daily. It’s one of the ways we are able to “live without” cable. (Said in quotes because after many years of living cable-free, it’s really not a tircha.) If I canceled Prime, I’d probably end up getting Netflix, which would run me $96 per year. For $3 more a year, I’ll take Prime’s free two-day shipping, too, thankyouverymuch.

I am a Kindle owner and with Amazon Prime, I get one free Kindle loaner book a month. I’ve take advantage of five of these “loans” in the last 12 months, saving me $23. Yes, $3 more than this increase.